<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>the man who ate himself by darkside_cookies</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25056232">the man who ate himself</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkside_cookies/pseuds/darkside_cookies'>darkside_cookies</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>greek mythology retellings [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cannibalism, Gen, Horror Elements, Retelling, Slavery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:39:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,040</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25056232</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkside_cookies/pseuds/darkside_cookies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A re-telling of the myth of Erysichthon through the eyes of his daughter.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>greek mythology retellings [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the man who ate himself</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Huge thanks to adastreia_writes for editing this! You can also find a greek version of this story on my wattpad: darkside_cookies</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are two versions of this story.</p>
<p>   In the first version, Mestra returns to her father. Perhaps with the passivity of a dog constantly returning to its awful owner, perhaps with the love of a daughter who thinks she can change the course of history, perhaps because she has nowhere else to go. The important thing is that she returns on her own volition and sells herself over and over again. Her father dies anyway. It does not matter. She returned.</p>
<p>   In the second version, Mestra leaves. She runs away, escapes, is saved. The woman transformed into an animal transformed into a woman, with salt on her lips and her magic herbs sheltered in the pouch around her waist. Sometimes, someone's curse is someone else's salvation. From the top of the hill she looks back at her house and through the window she sees the crooked figure of her father sit on the table. Her father dies. This is always the end of the story.</p>
<p>   But before the end, the choice, always.</p>
<p>   In the clearing, the grass turns silver under her step. Her feet are hooves - the deer, the woman - she lies on the ground with her face turned to the moon. If you put your hands in the soil, you will reap the fruits of the earth, as long as you are kind to her. That's probably the story she wants to tell. Her herbs and ointments are still at home, so many days later. She wonders if her father entered her chamber, if he searched between her drawers, if he took her plants down from the walls. They are not all edible, she knows.</p>
<p>   She raises her hand to the sky. Between her open fingers, the moon shines. This is her body. A woman's long fingers with round nails, calluses and hardened skin. This is her body. The other one too, when she transforms: the soft, colorful bird feathers, the sharp predators’ teeth, the smooth muscles and the crooked nails. Her body, indeed. This one, and all of the others too. She tries not to think about her father: their flocks and how he devoured one after the other, sitting over the fire, with his saliva glistening, his fingers burned by the meat. She tries not to think about her neck between his fingers, the day he pulled her out of her room. She tries.</p>
<p>She has this now. Her body.</p>
<p>	The moon is shining now, but soon, the Sun will rise from the edge of the horizon and then she will have to make a decision. When Poseidon touched her face, he didn’t give her an order. It was a gift, because he loves her. And after that, the choice is hers. There are two versions of this story. And before that, there is the story.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>   Mankind is an empty stomach, Poseidon told her, constantly trying to fill itself. In vain, Mestra had thought. He should know better than she does. Gods, humans; same thing. Obviously, it's blasphemy to just think so, but just because it's wrong doesn't mean it's not true. When she was little, she used to slip through the back door, getting lost in the woods with her apron tied to her knees. She loved her father then (she may never have stopped) and he loved her too (and he didn't stop; but hunger- hunger is stronger than love). His love was not enough to stop him from selling her, but it was enough for him to let her accept the call of magic. There, on the hills, every morning, she learned this: If you leave the goats on the hill, they will devour all the sprouts until all that is left is soil and rough, dark stone. People do the same. The difference is that there are wolves for goats, bears and lions. For humans, there are gods. What a misfortune that is.</p>
<p>   The curse befell him because of a poplar. The punishment was hunger. When her father returned home, Mestra found it difficult to recognize him: his eyes were shining but his gaze was dead, blurred, he was looking without seeing. He passed by her and silently, he locked himself in the cellar. "Demeter," said one of the slaves. Mestra did not understand until two days later, when she opened the cellar and found him lying on all fours, trying to lick the last drops of honey from an amphora. Hunger, eternal hunger.</p>
<p>  The hills never spoke to her about this. They didn't even answer when she asked, with her nails soaked in mud. The herbs did not work, no matter how many she poured them in his food, no matter how much she squeezed them in his wine, no matter how many she hung on his bed. Not that he used his bed. He stayed in the dining room, sitting in his chair with his mouth full then empty, full then empty, and Mestra stood on the doorstep with her fingers whitened, tight around the next plate.</p>
<p>   Much like the hill empties of animals after sunset, so was their house left bare. First the cellar, then the fruits and vegetables from the gardens, the sheep and goats, the money they had put aside, her mother's jewelry, the horse and the dog, and then everything. When it was her turn, Mestra held her head high and let her father sell her. "Why didn't you run?" her new owner asked her afterwards with his slimy lip pulled up. She couldn’t expect him to understand, a man who so easily bought a daughter from her father.</p>
<p>   When Poseidon came to her sleep, his breath smelled of salt. "I can't save your father," he said, and perhaps he was telling the truth. "The insult to Demeter was great, to try to cut down her sacred Tree". But he rested his palm on her cheek and gave her this: her body, her new body, her obedient body. That's what she thought. Now I have this. And with that, she transformed into a deer.</p>
<p>   Yes. The story. And here, the two versions; Mestra looks at the moon and somewhere further, in space and time, the man brings his hand to his mouth.</p>
<p>   He takes the first bite.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Demeter punished Erysichthon for cutting down her sacred Tree by inflicting him with insatiable hunger, driving him to sell all his possessions, including his daughter Mestra. Mestra was freed from slavery by Poseidon, who gave her the gift of shape-shifting. There are two versions of this myth. In the first version, Mestra uses her powers to run away. In the second version she uses her powers to sell herself numerous times to make money for her father. Erysichthon, having nothing else to eat, eventually, ate himself in hunger.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>